


Butterfly-effect

by WintersGreen



Category: The Power of Five - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Fix up, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WintersGreen/pseuds/WintersGreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Richard dies decades after the events of Oblivion he leaves behind a world that is still in pieces- and the hope of fixing it is nearly lost.<br/>To change it all for the better he chooses to start a new.</p><p>Which results into Matt Freeman pounding on his door without knowing whether his friend still knows him. Exactly two months before they should have met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The man who wrote fate

So, guys. I have been hooked up with the book series for quite some time now, about five or six years i would guess. Sadly it is not that popular and its very hard to fid a long fanfiction about it so i thought: why not have a go?

It is going to be a mix of AU and a `sequel`. I hope you enjoy it!

There will be some violence, but nothing that would be more graphic than what was displayed in the books.

 

 

Richard Cole was not entirely sure what he had expected from dying or death in general, but this was never a scenario he would have imagined.

The smell of books was overwhelming, dust was a close second. The carpet underneath his naked feet was green. Not ugly, but really, really close to it. There were stains of dark liquids and all the stuff you can imagine sticking to peoples shoes and getting loose when they trampled over the rugged fibres of carpet afterwards. Dried leafs, sand and little stones, just to name a few. He could even spot a few long since dried chewing-gums near the shelves that stretched over the walls and freely through the room.

He defiantly would not have expected the afterlife to look just like the Micheal-Harbor* library of York that had been shut down before Richard had finished school. Being the bookish kid he had been, he had spent hours after hours in the uncomfortable reading chairs.

To now stand in the middd of that nostalgic scenery again was unsettling, even if he remembered himself of the certain fact that he was dead. Not just in a coma or having a bad dream, but really, really dead. His toes curled against the familar-forgotten-remembered carpet. It was all just as he had know it. Down to the posters of museums that decorated the wall. Down to the little figures that sat on the librarians desk. Down to the paper decoration on the windows that had lost all colour even before the building had stopped being used and then been left to crumble for five years before it was stamped flat into the ground to make room for a shopping center. Richard knew that he wouldn't have been able to remember this detail if asked, but now it was all back in his mind, as vivid as if it had been yesterday that he had hunched over a huge history volume right over there, always in the chair that sat right next to the window.

Sighing he run a hand through his hair. And stopped. Only to repeat the action a few seconds later. His hair was full again, soft blond wisps of hair that glided through is hands easily. Hands that were like they used to be back at a time when he only used them for typing hundreds of lines of text into his old battled laptop. It figured, that dying would make him young again. He even wore clothes like he would have back then, he realised. Faded jeans and a black T-shirt that fit loosely to his lean frame.

Richard had not lived long enough to get really old. Not old enough for his face to wrinkle like a pepper that was forgotten in the refrigerator or his hair and teeth falling out. His hands had become rougher and were covered with calluses from the manual labor he had done on a daily basis. His hair had been grey long before he had turned forty, trimmed far shorter that he would have liked it in his youth. He had also sported rather prominent lines of worry and pain, he remembered. And wait- did he just have to remember a fact the was only a few minutes away form being his reality?

A few minutes and death, was whispered softly in his mind. “Yeah, like I would forget that.”

“You would be surprised what effects your deaths do have on the mind.” Whipping around as fast a possible, Richard stumbled a step back, hand pressed to his racing hearth. There had been no one with him a second ago, he knew that. He had been the only one in this lost and forgotten place and now he was standing across from a rather small man who wore floor-length white robes paired with a short red jacket. It was quite the unusual look but was quickly overlooked in favour of his face which looked like a sculptor had just finished it. It would meat the anatomic `standards´ for a human face, but in the same way that Michelangelo´s David did. Even the most accurate details would not have been able to make it seam real. And there wasn't much detail in this face.

Giving Richard a soft smile he came a few steps closer but remained next to one of the chairs that stood in front of the study desks.

“Did I startle you? I fear I did, didn't I?” Richard did not answer, but the man did not wait for one, either. “But you don't seem to be as startled as many others would be. You remember young Matt talking about me then?”

Richard nodded a little. “The librarian”, he said, mostly to test the sound of it for himself, reminding that this was real. Or as real as it gets in…the afterlife?

“Yes, that would be the term to refer to me from your point of view. But lets not dwell on names. Even your mortals have long since discovered their lack of importance.”

Shakespeare, Richard mused. Romeo and Juliet. It was sad, that he now realised that it has been quiet a while since he met someone who could recall the play in detail.** For a few seconds no one said anything.

“Won´t you ask your question?” the small man spoke up.

His question? Questions he would have enough. Trying to settle for the most important one would be much harder. Aware of the big knot in his throat he made an attempt to clear it before speaking. His words still sounded much more shaken than he actually felt.

“Why are you here?”

“Thats not the important one, Richard,” the man smiled. “I have always been here. And don't ask me to specify here either. It is not an answer you would understand right now.

Caught of guard Richard shuffled his feet over the rough ground. “Than should I maybe ask why I am here?”

Nodding his head the librarian laid something down on the table he was standing at. “Yes, that would be a good question. But you can answer that one yourself.” When the newly death did only open his mouth but with nothing to actually say the arabic continued. “You are here to help me with something, Richard.” Even the thought of being able to do something that this man could not do himself was ridiculous so Richard guessed it maybe could be something that he didn't want to do himself and would therefore give the task to someone else. Or maybe this was what happened when you had finished your chores in life. You get one for death. He wondered what possibly could have been chosen to be appointed to him specifically.

“This one is easy to answer, too. Just remember. What was it that you always wanted and always did?”

“I wrote”, he answered without thinking. “But…I didn't do it a lot lately?” he knitted his brows in confusion. It was hard to remember. Far, far harder than it should be. “I didn't pick up a pen for almost twenty year.” Yes, that tasted like the truth. Although, again, he could not tell why the facts came so slow to him.

“I know. But that does not change what you have inside you. You have been a writer since your earliest youth; no matter how many potatoes you dug out of the ground during the last years, your core has not even been touched by this, let alone being altered."

“I don't know what to write. The only story I would like to write…I can’t. Not after what happened. I can’t.” The thought of his lost friends washed over him for a second, but he did not let it surface. The wound cause by their sacrifice and his Matts death, the way he died, still left a place deep inside of him raw and arching.

“Richard, the past is past. All the stories are already written. The only thing that still leaves us with blank paper would be the future. Or… a past that never got the chance to happen.”

Richard blinked. Once, twice. He couldn't have understood that correctly, could he? But he knew he did just as he knew that the old man was serious with it. “No, this is impossible!” The librarian laughter lowly.

“After what you saw you still can´t allow your thoughts to liberate themselves from what you have been thought is possible?”

“No. That… This is not the way it happens! We… can´t mean the same thing!” he was getting desperate, he knew, but all the possibilities were racing in his head by now, chasing each other and fighting to come to the surface.

“Do you honestly believe that? What if I tell you that this is not how it was supposed to be? That if everything, every action, every thought or emotion has a purpose, follows a diving plan- or whatever you would choose to call it- that somewhere it all slipped from the predestinated path. That the old ones stirred it from its original course? Humanity was not meant to be like this, Richard. Do you think trying to built up civilisation once again, with almost the whole word swallowed up in corruption and misery is what it should be like?”

“You say you want to…alternate the past? Change the future? You want ME to somehow help you with this? How am i supposed to do that? And i am not talking about the how like with means! I am talking about…god, I am married!” Just as he spoke the words they really sunk in. He was married. he had a wife. And a son; Matt. He remembered. God, he had to remember them! The way she would smile at him when he was lost in his thoughts and memories again. How Matt had done his first steps. How she smelled. He could remember it now. He also realised, that he couldn't remember her name. Horror and fear clashed down on hime like a wave. The holes in his memories suddenly so clear, the pain of that loss sharp like a razor blade, cutting in his hearth and crushing his windpipe. “What happens to me?”, he whispered. Or maybe it wasn't him. His own voice sounded so foreign to him by now. A whisper, badly audible, desperate an pleading. Sinking to his knees in an attempt to hide from the agony of it all. Or maybe the weight that clashed down on his pressed his Hands and knees on the carpet, tears running over his face. “You can´t be asking this- I would kill them! I would erase all the people that are only born because of what happened. I would kill more in the process of just…changing. I…I would…I can´t do this!” A small hand settled on his shoulder, feeling oddly comforting, although the touch hold no actual warmth in itself.

“If you want to thing it this way, you would have to think of the people who died. They are billions, you know that. All the suffering and torture the old ones had forced on mankind. On you and the ones who dared to fight them. The people of the Nexus, the gatekeepers. On Matthew.”

“Why are you doing this to me? This is not fair…”

“Fairness is a foreign concept to fate, Richard. I do not depend on it, either.”

“You want me to erase my own sons life!” he sobbed.

“No, Richard. I wouldn't do that. You have to know, that life is so much more than the circle you imagine it to be. It is fluid, without borders or ends. No life is wasted, no matter what will happen to it. No matter wether it gets to be lived to the fullest or if the odds will prevent it form ever being born into your world. Each life in itself is of equal worth.”

“How should I be okay with this? How do you expect me to do this?”

“You may not realised it, but you already made tho decision. You are already disconnecting yourself form your reality.” His voice was kind, but that didn't make the words easier to bear.

“My memories.”

The librarian made a small sound that sounded like confirmation. And just like this the last strength left his mind and the body followed suit, letting his arms give out, leaving him crushing to the ground, desperation oozing form his every pore. No more air in his lungs to cry out, his mouth twisted into sharp lines of intangible pain.

 

 

Richard didn't know how long he was lying on the floor after that. When he found the strength and- more important- the will to get up again everything inside his chest and head felt hollow. There weren't even the right words to describe the state his soul was in. Head hanging low he couldn't utter more than a broken whisper.

“Tell me what to do.” He was too numb to feel the hand on his back, but his feet followed the gentle pressure automatically, stirring him to the table and guiding him to sit down on the chair. Before him lay a book cover with a front and a back. It was closed, but there were no pages inside, it was much too flat. Simple letters read the one name that could still make his shattered hearth twitch in more regret.

Matthew Freeman

“You don´t have to rewrite the world fate, Richard. The world will follow, if you can just erase the damage that was done when the old ones tainted this one life.”

“Where shall I start?”

“You will know as soon as you start. This is your destiny in this part of your life.” Richard nibbled on his bottom lip. He was sitting on his hands like a child, not the man of nearly fifty years he had lived to be before the cancer had eaten his lungs and then his life away.*** Lifting his right hand to slowly take a hold of the shiny black pen that waited for him to pick it up cost him more energy than one might imagine. In the corner of his eyes he could see the sympathetic and sad, but also hopeful and encouraging smile on the librarians lips. Then he opened the books lid and the other man blurred together with the background. A thin page appeared out of nowhere, waiting for him to fill it with ink and, quite literally, life. Pressing the pen to the blank paper like he had never done anything else Richard began to write.

It was bizarre and mind blowing just like it was perfectly natural. He wrote every single breath, wrote every hearth beat into Matt´s chest. He didn't leave out a thought the boy will have had in his whole life. Every time he reached the end of the page a new one would appear for him. The only time he put the pen down was when he finished. Raising his head he immediately felt the stiffness and resulting pain in his neck. His eyes felt rather strange, too. They were dry and wouldn't focus on anything he turned his gaze on. Flexing his fingers he heard the joints crack. With a curious look he watched them flex and curl. He didn't have his younger selfs hands anymore. Neither did he have the ones he died with. This pair was more wrinkled and wiry than his ever gotten the chance to be. The blue veins stood out in a sharp contrast to the paper like white skin.

“How long have I been writing?”

“Your whole life and no time at all.” Came the answer. This time Richard did not even flinch when the otherworldly voice rang out from behind him. He gave to book in front of him a gentle stroke. It was not as thick as you would imagine a book that contained a whole life, including every little wonder that was a heartbeat. But the…magic of its own had moulded it into this shape.

Everything had to be written, but not everything had to be read. Richard understood that now, just how he understood so much now. Like the fact, that he would not remember what he had just set into motion. That all the things he had put his hearth into would be lost on him very soon.

“And what will happen now?” There was a warm breeze that made his silver hair dance in its wake. The librarian took a few seconds to answer and when he did his voice was gentle with affection and sympathy.

“Now, Richard, you will die again.”

He had barley time to raise his head in surprise before the wind picked up an impossible strength and blew strong enough to force his eyes to close while it swiftly blew the room around him back into the mere thought it had been in the first place. Then there was only light. But the sound and smell and darkness and colours would come back to him, so Richard took a deep breath and settled on waiting for it all to begin again.

 

 

________________________________

*Nope, this does not exist. But was inspired by all the libraries i spent my time as a kid.

**From Juliet's monologue on the balcony, i guess. If you are interested in beautiful old english here is more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rose_by_any_other_name_would_smell_as_sweet

***Yeah, I know he lived probably much longer that that, with him and Holly still drinking to the five when she was seventy, but really, this is going to be kind of AU anyway, so you won´t want to upset yourself over such a petty detail, will you? ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

 

_"As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

 

 **M** att had never expected his third life to be his second. He had not expected there to be a third one. He had known that the old demons had been erased from the face of earth for good. He had know that from there on he would be allowed to spent his life in the other world.

Matt Freeman had finally been able to see, that both his lives had been one. The real reason for him being the leader of the five. He had always been the one that had already won against the old ones. Simply because time was insignificant and much more complex than he could try to put into words- and because, to him, it was all _one_ life.

And now he woke up from a nearly sleepless night he had experienced twice, without remembering going to bed. For a short moment he had a little difficulty to remember which exact day it was. Or month. His body felt and looked like it had on his ´last´day. Minus the scars and more recent injuries either of his selves had possessed, of course. It was the most bizarre feeling ever. Looking at his night stand didn't help, either. He had no habit of keeping a calendar around and the battered old alarm clock didn't even run digital. Just two crooked clock-hands pointing out how early it was.

Seven o'clock. Much too early to get up.

Matt hadn't visited school on a regular basis since he was closer to fourteen than thirteen. Remembering made him vince. Well, he had been stupid. But he had also been a _`normal´ teenager_ back then and that made it somewhat easier to accept what a fool he had made out of himself, yeah?

Struggling out of the covers he hobbled over to his jeans. They still lay on the chair he must have dumped them on. The cell in his left pocket was a tiny thing. It had more scratches than untouched paint and even the screen was cracked in one corner. It was definitely something else than the shiny new smartphone the Nexus had equipped him with. He flipped the lid open and ignored the missed-messages it showed in favour of looking at the date.

April 13th, 2012 ***** It was a friday. Chuckling a little about the coincidence of something like this (waking up in his past/ starting a third life/ waking up from the strangest dream of all times) on a friday the thirteenth of all days; he switched back to the front screen. Well, the last assumption was plain stupid, he knew that. But it was a very amusing one. Scrolling through his messages he shook his head.

 

**Message one: Kelvin texted: Yo man, up for some shit the` night?**

 

**Message two: Kelvin texted: Haven't been to the park some time. Bring something to drink!**

 

**Message three: Kelvin texted: Where have u been?! Waited for a hour! Call me!**

 

Crunching up his nose in disgust he began delating the messages. Calling that fuck-up? Like hell he would! _And that should read `waited for an hour´, idiot!_ Matt then pulled on his worn jeans and went in search for a clean sweater. It wasn't every sunday that laundry got done in this household. It wasn't every month that laundry got done unless Matt did it. And even then didn't he own the most appealing clothing. Just worn dark coloured sweaters and shirts. He was not exactly fashionable and had often had much more serious things on his mind than his clothing, but when he had not been running for his life or sneaking into some kind of evil stronghold he had found it really easy to get used to new, and more importantly, fresh clothing. The sad state of his wardrobe made him miss even the horrendous Hawaii shirt that Richard had gotten him for whatever reason. Richard. Remembering his friend made his stomach clench. The last time he had seen the other man he had looked so run down and sad that remembering almost hurt. Maybe it only remembered the Inca knife that had been thrusted into it... Shaking his head free of the disturbing thoughts he fetched himself a black Tee. He didn't know for sure, but something told him that he wasn't simply going to live a peaceful life from now on. If that was the idea behind this whole thing here, his parents would be alive for sure. No, it felt more like he was getting a second go at the… ~~pathetic, sad, disturbing, short~~ … thing he had lived. No idea for how long.

That would mean the old ones got a second try at word domination, too. And that would just so fit right in the long chain of bad luck that trailed behind him. To not have to fight these monsters twice but trice. _Hey, nice rhyme going on in that sentence!_

Somewhere on his desk he found clean, not fresh but clean, hoodie he pulled over together with his socks and the old running shoes he nearly fell over while going back to his bed to retrieve his wallet. And yes, he had slept with the thing under his pillow. His aunt and her horrible husband had already spent his inheritance, he wouldn't put it past them to steal his pocket- ahem, pick-pocketed- money. He also found a pack of cigarets right beside it, but he left them behind without a second thought. He would retch from the taste for sure. Since the necropolis that once been Hong-kong he had a very strong distaste for anything rotting and burned- most of all if said thing happened to be human flesh. And if he, by any chance, would stay alive long enough to die from cancer he would totally not appreciate the irony of that, either.

A quick lock revealed that he had the amazing amount of twelve pound in his pocket. Oh, and don't forget the eighty-three pence! Well, it would be too much to ask for a magic refill of his founds if he had already gotten his life back, right? With every thing he would need for the time being he made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

The floor creaked underneath his feet. The stairs as well. The floor of the kitchen stuck to his shoes soles. Probably beer that got spilled during the previous night. That would explain the less than pleasant smell as well. The old refrigerator made angry rattling noises when pulled open. There wasn't much in it beside more beer, a bar of butter, some ham and cheese. And eggs as well as a can of milk in the door. The milk was already opened so Matt wouldn't dream of using it- his aunts husband had the disgusting habit to drink directly from the bottle. There wasn't a snowballs chance in hell that he would touch something that man had salivated on. Instead he fetched himself a pot of yogurt from farer back. It hadn't reached the perishing-date yet and was unopened. It was also orange flavour which was much less disgusting than strawberry. Matt had once seen a documentation on how cabbage that had been soaked in artificial strawberry-aromas was put into yogurt that sold in the UK. He had jet to see such a thing about oranges. And he was perfectly willing to delude himself that the cabbage-thing was limited to the strawberries until he was proven wrong, thank you very much. Fishing himself a spoon he leaned against the kitchen counter.

His mind was racing over everything he could process right now but he wasn't willing to let a single thought rise to the surface. Everything was overwhelming in its familiarity that simultaneously felt like ages ago now. He did know, that he would need to get out of the house as soon as possible. He could already feel the hairs on his arms rise in disdain of the depressing atmosphere this place emitted.

Finishing his breakfast he threw the empty container away and dropped the spoon in the sink. He wasn't sure, but he thought it had been around this time that the dishwasher had broken down. Also he couldn't be bothered to clean after himself. The only upside of being a trouble child had been troubling his relatives. Even if that had bitten him right back in the ass quite often...

 

 

Stepping out into the crisp morning air made him wish for a jacket, but not badly enough to go back to fetch one. He simply pulled up his hood and stuffed his hands into the big front pocket of his hoodie and marched on. The door closed with a much louder slam than necessary. Hopefully it was loud enough to wake the other two inhabitants up.

The street was not as busy as he would have expected it to be. Wasn't half past seven the time for the morning rush into the city centre? No? Could have fooled him… At least he knew that the busses were already driving on a regular basis as had caught sight of the one that drove in the opposed direction he was headed at. The short walk to the stop showed him all kinds of things he hadn't missed. The tiny, mostly not well kept front yards of houses that looked all somewhat akin. The kids who jogged to catch their bus. Most of them on the best way to spiral down a similar road as Matt himself had. He missed the steady hum of well used city streets he could have heard from the London apartment he had shared with Richard. Or the quiet nature sounds outside of Professor Chambers house in Peru. Nicest place he had ever lived at, that house. Even without the laughably comfortable beds the various five-star hotel the Nexus had continued to set him up in before and after that had offered.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of him and Matt hopped on. He automatically headed for the back row. He didn't have a specific place in mind when he got out of the house in the morning, but he had a pretty good idea where to got to now. Getting out of the house without going to school was one of the things he had too much practice in. In the summer he would hang out somewhere outside. In the winter he would head to a place that was warm but didn't require him to purchase something. Or was too busy to notice the lack of purchasing on his part. He knew exactly how to slide past the service desk in McDonalds and sit down next to the various plates that customers hadn't cleaned away when they had finished their hearth-attack between two buns and poor dead-fried fries, with mayo, that had dripped in oil.

The bus pulled to a stop once again and Matt did a quick scan of his surroundings. It was still a few stops to go. After all he had decided on the public library that was closest to his `home´and easily reachable by public transportation. He was fourteen and obviously had neither a license nor a car. Even though he knew for sure that he could drive. He had learned it on a classmates uncles wrecking yard in a wired car. A library was heated, without any costs attached and, most importantly, offered access to both the internet and the telephone book.

A little flicker of red in his periphery vision caught Matts eyes. There was an elderly woman coming his way. She carried a bag of something he couldn't make out.A heavy back of something he couldn't make out. Still she stopped in her track when she looked at him. Her head wandered from side to side, checking the other seats in the bus. There weren't any other free seats left, it was a weekday morning after all, and for a moment Matt was confused by her apparent hesitation. Until it hit him. He was the moody teenager with his hood still pulled over his head, hand buried in his pocket and slouching in the seat. Exactly that kind of person that got avoided. It hadn't bother him at all, before. But now it did. Being that person again wasn't what he wanted. He straightened up and pulled his hood down. The woman even got a smile that felt reassuring and a little sheepish on his face. She did not look happy but indeed sat down next to him. In his pocket he felt his phone vibrating.

 

**Kelvin texted: U up? My brother bought a smoke. Want some?**

 

Clenching his jar Matt delated the grammatically offending text without second thought. It pained him to be remembered of the bad decision that guy had been. (And why was the thug up at this hour, anyway? He usually would sleep till the work day was about to end, not about to start) The woman got off on the next stop and Matt noted her leave with a polite nod of the head that seemed to surprise her. Well, long time since I have been regarded as a crook. Almost got used that…

The stop that read public library was finally reached after twelve agonisingly loud minutes full of grade schooler that were so damn exited about the upcoming weekend that one could be let to believe it was the first fucking free day in months. And that was an alliteration right there. Staying with Richard had sure had an lasting impact on his grammar and stuff. Smirking to himself he hopped on the sidewalk. He knew the way by hearth, his legs moving on their own account until he pushed heavy doors open to enter the building.

Quiet and warmth were the first thing he recognised, his stiff muscles relaxing now that he no longer unconsciously stopped himself from shivering. He hadn't been in a library, a normal, human library, for ages. Not exactly a bookworm he had only used this place to relax if he couldn't handle the noise or the smell of old kitchen fat. The woman behind the desk looked at him with raised eyebrows but didn't say anything. It was early and it was a school day. Maybe she was used to kids coming here instead of school or maybe she didn't care. After all this was a better way to skip school than walking the streets. Okay, back to the task! (The task being locating the first person he could think of wanting to see right now. And yes, that would be Richard.) The journalist was after all his oldest and closest friend during his struggle against the old ones. If he was to face this whole disaster again he would want him by his side.

Contacting the Nexus was a nice option, but they wouldn't want him to reach out to a `civilian´. And if this was, miraculously, not a retry of saving the world he would make a complete fool out of himself. Richard got over thinking Matt was a little whacky in his brain once. He would manage a second time for sure.

 

As confidently as possible he made his way over to the woman at the service desk. She looked up with pulled eyebrows when he stopped in front of her instead of sulking in some corner and he attempted the nice-boy smile he was told he could pull of perfectly.

“Morning. I was wondering, wether you would have a new exemplar of the phone book at hand?” Matt knew she had, but asking was more polite than demanding. It fit the impression he wanted to leave on her. Polite teen she didn't need to remember.

“Well, I have. Just a moment!” Matt nodded and relaxed his hand on the edge of the desk while she got up and fetched a untouched looking book from the shelf behind her. Telephone books used to lie around freely, but they didn't get a number on their back like other books and usually ended up disappearing in the first three weeks. Usually ended up as a fire. Not bothering to go over to a table the (former?) gatekeeper opened the tome up right there. The letter on the side read **`Da.´**. Close but not quite what he looked for. Flipping the pages until he saw the fat **`Co.´** he was taken aback when a voice cut into his eager concentration.

“Are you searching for someone _special_?”, the woman asked, leaning slightly over the desk while wrapping her wool coat around her small frame at the same time as she peered at the pages.

“Uhm, well, a friend of mine.” Nosy library-woman. Cliché at twelve o’clock. She made a sound that was neutral but inquiring at the same time. Inwardly Matt rolled his eyes. Outwardly he let his finger wander down the lines of names. He knew for sure that Richard was in the telephone book, the Nexus had to remove his name when he was established as Matts companion. He found what he was looking for in that exact moment but let his finger wander down a few names until it rested on Coles, Timothy and Miranda. Better really-really-safe than sorry! If the old ones were still in the picture he would not give them a pointer to his whereabouts again.

He remembered the address and phone number as fast as he could before closing the book again. With a nod for parting he wished the woman a nice day and exited the building only ten minutes after he had entered it. A wind had picked up and Matt made sure to protect his head with a thick layer of fabric once again. The head was the part of the human body that lost the most warmth. He than typed the address and phone number into the SMS feet of his phone and saved it under drafts. Very James Bond of himself, the whole affair, he noted in mild amusement. He could look into that if (yeah, most likely ´ _if´_ and not ` _when´_ ) he got the opportunity to decide on a career.

Riding the bus back was even dumber but also less cramped. Thank god for small favours! He was back before his phone read half past eight.

 

 

Sadly the realisation that he hadn't grabbed his keys before he left hit him a little too late. Between having someone who would accompany him or wait for him in the flat/ house/ hotel and being able to open up any door without a key he had gotten unused to pocketing them. Stupid. To his luck the door unlocked without any problems when he gave the lock a little twist with mind instead, bringing up his hand to at least pretend it didn't open- mostly- on its own. At least he now knew for sure that he still had the abilities. Oh what a joy… The only upside was that he could use them to show he wasn't completely crazy when he tried to explain the concept of alien demons from older times to a particular blond journalist.

Inside the house it was as quiet as it had been when he went outside not long ago. Quiet was good. It meant he wouldn't get into as much trouble right now. He didn't give himself time to think it over but instead went for his room.

An old sports back he had never used to pack sport supplies into flew into his outstretched hand from the place on the wardrobe. He placed it on the bed and packed shirts, socks, underwear, shoes, jeans as well as his pocket knife and a flashlight. Hell, he didn't knew what to pack. His only idea was everything that was clean and could be useful. The specification seamed pretty reasonable, if a little sketchy…

The few things he held dear went next. A picture of himself and his smiling parents, their wedding bands and his mother´s necklace which he had stolen from his aunt- he got a couple pretty rough slaps for that, but not telling where he hid them had been worth the pain. Also his dads University shirt he had slept in on that fateful night. The last time he didn't have the chance to get the things he valued and he had been careful not to morn for them. This time however he knew that he wouldn't come back and could prepare. No matter how things went with Richard, he would not come back to this place. He hated even the thought of wasting another hour of his life here. This was a past that was…a dimension/ time-travel?- away.

After he finished packing he got his jacket. Not freezing was strongly preferable, after all. Not bothering to silence his steps as he rumbled down to the ground floor, he had a pretty good idea what else he could fetch. The bag landed on the table while he went to open a cabinet over the sink. This had always been the place where Gwenda and Brian kept their cash. Lots of cash at some time, only a few bill at others. Usually he would have to stretch or get a stool to stand on, but this time he simply willed the rolled up money to move over until he could close his finger around it. Grimm satisfaction settled in his stomach while he unrolled the money and counted it. Seems like he was lucky- it was easily more than three hundred pounds. But stealing what was about a quarter of what the couple legally made in a month wouldn't give him a sleepless minute. These people had stolen so much more than his money. They could simply deal with it.

Just as he tugged the money into his valet an angry voice behind him shouted obscenities at his back, demanding him to explain what he was thinking he was doing. Well, I am stealing your money and leave your house to stay with a man who doesn't know me yet, but will hopefully help me to battle forces of evil.

The expression on Brian's face would have been priceless for sure. But not worth the hassle-maybe.

“I am leaving”, Matt said instead. His voice was completely even, which startled the big man in front of him, he could tell. He was used to Matt trying to avoid his anger because he was obviously inferior to him in terms strength and weight.

But Matt may look like the fourteen years old teenager he was used to, but he was very different from that by now. He had experienced enough to let the alcoholic wife-beater seem as treating as a teddybear in comparison. And he knew that he wouldn't need his fists to defend himself anymore, either. His powers relied on sheer will and confidence- both he had acquired the hard way.

“Ya leaving? And where do you want to got? With MY money?!”

“You have no right to call me a thief and you know that. You also have no right to touch a hair on my head. Maybe you delude yourself into thinking you have a right to claim anything you can take for yourself by force, but you cant demand a foul shit from me anymore.” Without an other word Matt grabbed his bag and went for the door that was still blogged.

When the bulky man didn't make a move to let him pass but instead laughted and massaged his fist- in a way that really shouldn't look that gleefully- Matt reached to his powers and made them punish forward.

_Hard._

Blood sprayed the walls, leaving the mans nose a broken mess as he fell back into the entrance area. He leaned heavily on the staircase, clutching the mutilated middle of his face. Matt passed him without a sympathetic thought on his minds. Only when he stood in the open doorway did he turn back.

“Oh, and you better don't tell anyone about it. It would ruin your reputation if word got out that the fourteen year old charge of your wife could do something like that to your face, right?”, he smiled at the horrified man.

Stepping out of the doors for what he knew was the last tim he enjoyed the weight that had lifted from his shoulders. He had dreamed about doing something like this for ages! This time he did not look back...

 

________________________________

_Thank you very much for reading! Be so kind to leave me a little note on what you think about it. Also thanks to those who have already leaven cudos! :D_

_*Yes, that was an actual friday the thirteenth. ;) I couldn't find the start of the series on the internet and have no access to my own copies of the series right now. I know that the first book was published in 2005, but that is waaaay back by now, isn't it? I think a lifting in the time wouldn't hurt, either way._


	3. ...not knowing at all...

 

**Chapter 3-Not knowing at all…**

 

 

 

_“Each meeting occurs at the precise moment for which it was meant. Usually, when it will have the greatest impact on our lives.” - Nadia Scrieva, Fathoms of Forgiveness_

 

 **M** att had only slight difficulties to buy himself a ticket for the train.

It wasn't like he got a long term ticket like most kids received them from their parents. He usually just made himself scare before he could be controlled.                                   And avoided the subway when people were around to see him jump over the restrictions. Nothing of that sort, from now.

First: It could get him into trouble and second: draw attention to him. The second reason being the more important one for time being. He could only guess, but the old ones and their minions must have searched for him and the other gatekeepers since forever. They had huge human resources and people in strategically useful positions, but their eyes couldn't be on every single child in the world, even if they had a vague idea on the place they were most likely to be born again.

They found Scarlett due to the tell tale move of walking through one of the doors.                                                                                                                                                                  They found Scott because they had searched for kids with abilities and the twins were pretty ` _open_ ´about said abilities.                                                                       They didn't find Pedro- Matt did, completely accidentally and without knowing who he had in front of him for quiet some time. Or you could call their meeting fate, if one were to believe in fait…                                                                                                                                                                                                                   They had found Matt when he had been arrested.

If he would stay well under the radar there was a slim chance of that happening. He was also certain that he would be able to spot their creatures with ease and most likely even their human servants.

They all carried the mark of death and destruction on them. It was hard to get rid of such an aura.

 

Finding the train required even less practice. It took him a moment to remember the stations name, but when he saw the spot named ` _Winsely Park_ ` on the subway map he immediately recalled the tiny stop, complete with wooden bank and a garbage bin that was always willed with tree branches and grass. Whoever put them in there.

It was friday and Matt didn't know wether Richard would be at work once he arrived there. The train would take him about an hour and ten minutes to cross the city, he had to change the line only once and the apartment in building 23, with it´s blue painted windows and rough brick walls that showed on the outside as well as on the inside was only a corner away from his final stop.

It was now quarter past nine. It was friday. Work day, even if it was the last for this week. Normally Richard should be at work by the time Matt turned up.

It was hard to be sure, though. The older man had not been on a regular work- schedule when they had lived together. The whole fighting evil thing had made it pretty hard. Instead he had worked at home a lot and visited the office on the rare occasions he couldn't simply sent his articles to the newspapers office per Mail or Fax. He hadn't been really enthusiastic over that job, anyway. He had hated the `meaningless´ things he had written about and never possessed a model working attitude.

Back then he wouldn't be caught over his lifeless body at the office on a friday, no matter what time it was.

 

Smiling to himself Matt played with the leather strap on his wrist. And even if he wasn't at home, he could still open the door on his own, just like he had earlier. Richard wasn't the kind of man who would check the flat for sings of trespassing when he came home. He would most likely drag himself into his kitchen and brew himself a stron coffee or espresso before flopping down on the bed or sofa, witch ever was closer.

At least that was what he was like when we met. The journalist had been much more attentive later on, always aware of his environment and noting small things away in his mind to bring them up for evaluation or discussion later.

But he hadn't been the kind of man who would grab a baseball bat or kitchen knife to chase off a burglar. He would curse in an awfully creative way, hold his hands up and wonder why things like this always happened to him.

Grinning the teen flipped his phone open. That was one of the better parts of a smartphone, one could always switch to the app store and find a nice little game to play to avoid boredom. When on long journeys Pedro had always tapped onto his phone. Somehow growing up without the most recent technology had made him even more eager to learn when he did get his hands on it. And he had the mind for it, too. Figuring out what to do with each little button and beating everyones hight score on flapping bird. Inti had been constantly chatting everyone up or busied himself with figuring out logistics and planing ahead for his people.                                       Scarlet had stared up into the sky quiet often. In both of her lives, although more so when she had been Scar and not Scarlett.                                                                He couldn't say much about the twins of this age, but Scott mostly stared straight ahead, not really seeing anything and Jamie had stared straight ahead at his brother. In the past they would have been in each others minds, most likely playing tic-tac-toe or something like that.

But in the past it had been much easier to busy oneself. They had travelled by horse, what required a certain level of attention on itself. There had also always been other people who wanted a word with them or needed to be lead.

Back then the gatekeepers had been leaders to their respective people. Now they would be a bunch of scared kids who stumbled into this completely unprepared. Matt knew what was coming for them, at least he knew who was coming for them, and still he was completely cureless all the same. He didn't know where to turn first, what to do. How to prepare himself for what was coming, once again. They would need help for what they were supposed to do. They had to stop Chaos before he could do all the awful things he had done to the future.

Or was it the past?

Or did it never happen?

The leader of the five shook his head violently, clearing it off these questions. Yes, they would need help. There was no way they could actually form a plan to attack the old ones while they were still weak from their exile when they had to stumble around all over the map themselves. Desperate to slip under the radar. The Nexus could provide them with that kind of help. It was their friends and allies themselves who would help them to gain the moral strength to endure it. It was going to be difficult to explain all this.

He knew that, in the past, everyone had always assumed that he was kind of all-knowing. And they had been right, to a degree. Reading his book much earlier into the whole crusade had given him an advantage they had needed. It had also been much more commonly accepted that there were people with greater powers and that they would play a special role in the war against the old one- who had been much more present and known, back then.                                                                               They didn't hide behind their human toys but instead paraded around openly, just like they had after the gatekeepers had disappeared from the scene for ten years, ten thousand years later.

Matt wondered wether the other gatekeepers would know as well. Wether they had woken up in their old lives like he had, or if they even knew longer than him. Matt was sure they would have found a way to contact him in that case, or the Nexus at least so he doubted it.

 _Oh god, this is giving me a really bad headache if I continue to roll it around in my mind like this. I should better stop before only a shower of aspirin will be able to cure me_.

The subway stopped. It was the fifth stop, maybe two or so more. Twenty still stops to go. Maybe two or so less. This would take ages to pass….

 

 

 

Stepping out of the wagon was like heaven.

The smell wasn’t, stale beer mixed with wet dog and something akin to burned rubber, but it was finally quiet. The ever identical sound of a train gliding over railway, mixed with too loud chatter of people who considered themselves the only ones on the ride and the ratting that always accompanied a subways ride were a really unpleasant mix.

Matt should definitely invest in an iPod or the like to keep the noise more pleasant. Shouldering his backpack he quickly choose his exit and waited for the escalator to carry him up to fresher air and sunlight.

 

 

Well, not that much sunlight, he thought when he had the sky directly over his head again, only to be drenched on the spot.

He pulled his hood over jet black hair and cursed his luck under his breath. As soon as he could he would have a little chat with Scarlet on how England would be a _much_ nicer place with less rain- although all the cliches about how it always rained were staggeringly exaggerated.                                                                                           It was a short walk down the street to Richards house, just like he remembered. And it did look exactly the same. Well, as far as Matt was concerned anyway. He hadn't spent that much time here and the time before and after had left much more vivd memories than the quite plain house in front of him. But it filled him with a kind of calm familiarity.

He hadn't made bad memories here, unlike the places he had traveled afterwards, this place has just remained untouched by the evil that had haunted them. It was nice. He took a few deep breathes, hearth pushing against his ribcage like it wanted to jump out.

He wasn't nervous.

To say he was a little terrified would put it much better.

This could either go well or horrible in more than one way. Pushing the ringer was easy. He just told himself he would do it, and before his brain could catch up with his body his finger had already pushed it all the way it. Matt could hear the ringing sound above his head.

Curiously he leaned his head back until he could see the slightly open window two stories up.

Richard never bothered to close his windows even when it rained. He would put on two shirts before he would get up and actually close the window. Sometimes he even put blankets on the floor to protect it from spraying droplets, but not simply close the god damn window. Matt though he could hear the rustling of paper, too. But then he could hear a lot of things that couldn't come from the flat he hoped the sounds to belong to. Like the angry cries of a baby and soft swing music.

For a second he entertained the thought of ringing again, to make sure he has been heard, but before he could the door came to live with a soft vibrating tune that told visitor that it could be opened now. Hastily arranging the bag on his shoulder more comfortably Matt leaned against the door and pushed it open.

The journalist lived on the top floor. It was only a three-floor building. Hastily making his way up the stairs Matt felt blood rushing in his ears. It wasn't that hard to climb up the short way, not even with the bag, so the sharpness of each breath had to stem from the nervous pounding in his chest.

_Oh god, Richard, pleas let me explain it. Please be like the last time. Please be still my friend!_

Rounding the last corner Matt came to a fast stop. He shouldn't have rushed up like this. His head felt funny and it would be quite embarrassing to explain the fast pace of his breathes. Taking as much air in as he could hold he forced his hearth to go slower. Just like he forced his legs the do the last steps in a normal pace.

On each floor there were three doors, each to one flat. Each one closed. Matt settled in front of the leftmost one and was just about to knock it flew open fast enough to make the young gatekeeper take back a hasty step or two.

 

The man in the doorway was Richard all right. He spotted jeans and a well worn black band shirt. His blond hair was messy in a way that gave away how much the journalist had run his hands through it. He was wearing striped socks.

“Uhm, good morning I…”, before Matt could introduce himself he was already sized in a hug that went from bear like to slightly soft, then back to bruising. Not knowing what to say and unable to do anything because his friend was caging his arms against his chest Matt just awkwardly waited for it to end.                                                 It did when Richard suddenly pushed the younger boy an arms length away from himself. His eyes were more guarded than he expected and searched his face for something Matt had no idea of. He tried to look his friend straight in the eye, even tried a shaky smile.

Richard shook his head a little, taking in the bag slung over his visitors shoulder and the wet patters on his shoulders.

“You are not going to tell me I am mad, that you do not know me and I should take my hands of right now, do you?”, Richard asked. His tone was joking and light, but there was still something underneath that asked for clarity something insecure.

“I recall you were the one who suspected, that I was the mad one, Richard.” A huge grin split Richards lips in two, showing off his white teeth. Clapping his left had on one wet shoulder he stirred his surprising visitor inside, trailing close behind, still smiling as broad as he ever had. Matt took in the slightly untidy apartment and smelled its custom smell, still familiar to his nose. That, combined with the calming presence of his trusted fried at his back, let his muscles loose up for the first time since he had woken up this morning.

And before he knew it, the grin on his lips stretched nearly as far as Richards.

 

 

Thank you very much for reading! I appreciate it, even more since we all know, that this is a rather small fandom compared to others. :)


	4. ...how it causes a typhoon on the worlds other side

 They ended up on Richards couch, each of them holding a cup of tea and not knowing what to say.

It was obvious that Richard really _did_ know what had happened. But beyond that? They had barley exchanged a few words. Matt didn't know where to start and the other man was probably feeling as awkward as he was.

They had gone through so much. And now it was all undone. Well, he could as well start with the small talk about the latest unexpected turn in their troublesome lives, couldn't he?

“So…what was it like for you? Do you actually remember this times `yesterday´ or is Oblivion your yesterday, too? Or even a time after that?”, Matt started. He hadn't thought about it until now-which was actually a little stupid- but Richard had survived the battle in antarctica. How much longer had he stayed on earth? Matt knew he had gone to the dreamworld with the other gatekeepers, but he could barley remember entering it. How much time had passed for his friend who could not accompany him?

In a display of perfect confusion Richard angled his head to the side, brows drawn together.

“Why do you ask that? Of course I do remember yesterday.” Now it was on Matt to sit up a little straighter.

“So… you say you didn't just wake up this morning, feeling like you were sent back in time?”

“What?!” Richard stood up, his not-occupied hand making a huge circle in the air. “Was that what it felt like to you?! For you `yesterday´ was… Oblivion and now you wake up and it is 2012 again?!”

“Yes. I mean…that would describe it about right, I think. But you…you say that isn't what happened to you?”

The journalist shook his head. He did it while marching around the floor, getting pretty agitated over something he didn't share yet. But the frustration was as clear in his staccato like step as it was in the frustrated little sounds he made. His face was drawn shut and he obviously had to come to terms with something before he was ready to share or even calm down. On one sharp turn he made an especially angry movement with his hands and the tea he still carried spilled over, splashing on his wrist and fingers.

“Oh, damn it!”, he cursed, hastily switching the cup into his other hand while trying to shake the hot liquid off.

 

While Richard hurried off to the kitchen to get himself cleaned Matt tried to be patient. The behaviour of the other was making him question the conclusions he had drawn once again and he was anxious to get to know Richards point of view on he while affair. Even more so since it seemed to be dissimilar from what he had experienced. Finally the blond came back to the sitting area where Matt had waited.His hands were cleaned and his expression, too. He walked like he was suddenly not sure what he should think of his unexpected visitor. His eyes were thoughtful and swept the room as if searching for an other surprise to jump on him.

“I think we really should talk about what we think has happened, shouldn't we?”, he asked. He sat back down, although he only allowed himself to sink into the cushions slowly and the gatekeeper couldn't help but notice all the tension in the way he held himself. It was vastly different from the man who had hugged him so enthusiastically only minutes before.

Richard was kneading his fingers while he slowly started to talk. His eyes were cast down and lose strands of hair obscured most of his face from Matts view. But he didn't need to see the distress in the other features.

 

“It started when I was still a kid. I don't know when exactly, only that it was very ordinary to me, nothing worth telling. It was like having a deja-vu. Only that I had a lot of those. I knew places I have never been to before and to many movies I could tell the ending. It got worse when I got older. I remembered people. Things that happened. When they broadcasted the planes that crashed into the twin towers I suddenly _knew_ that it was a terrorist attack. I felt like I had already seen it more than once, from more than one perspective. It is not like I was…seeing the future or something like that. I was- am- very sure that wasn't it. Just- most things didn't surprise me when they actually happened. It felt like it was just a replay or something like that. I was sure I was loosing my mind- and that was even before I started really seeing things.”

Richard snorted and took a few deeps breaths before he continued. Matt would have liked to put a hand on his shoulder or comfort him otherwise, but they had never been particularly touchy-feeling- besides the embrace from before, naturally.

“When I got to university I started to see… you. And me. Pedro, Scarlet and sometimes all the others. First I took it for a daydream, an inspiration for a book, maybe. But every time I tried to turn it into a story it would just feel wrong. And from there on it got so much more intense. I only needed to see a specific object, hear a few words and I would `remember´ something else. And believe me, the day I suddenly knew that I was seeing my, my past of sorts? I was this close from getting myself a nice, soft, padded cell. The more facts that came back to me, the more desperate I got to prove myself that I was just making it up. Because being a little mental, maybe from all the stress of getting university and my part-time jobs under one hat, was still better than…the other possibility. I had a really bad time getting over reading about your parent accident. It was on page four, just a very small passage, but I knew that that was it. The proof that I wasn't mental but really, really screwed up. I nearly drank my liver into oblivion.”

They were both chuckling about the very bad pun in that sentence.

“It wasn't just a vision for me. I always got the whole package; feelings, smells. It was so realistic, sometimes more than the struggles of an ordinary life. I killed people, Matt. But you know that, I killed you. God, I spent the whole day bent over the toilet after that memory.”

Matts chest contracted in sharp pity for his friend. It must have been horrible, spending years like this. When your mind was telling you things that shouldn't be possible. When you had to deal with emotions that were induced by `hallucinations´. Never being able to tell anybody. All the pain they had gone through. All the insanity. It was a fucking miracle that Richard hadn't lost it over the years. He must have an even stronger mind that he had been given credit for. And even knowing that it was not his fault at all, Matt couldn't help but feeling sorry for not having experienced the same thing. For having this… short-cut of sorts. Sorry for not being able to relate completely. For leaving his friend alone with this pain. He obviously was in pain. How much of that was because he had hoped that there was someone who had suffered the same way, only to be told that no, he was still alone in that? 

_He is not alone_ , Matt told himself. _You have so many memories in common. There is your past live, all of them, and this past of Richards´_. _But the memories he hurts over are the same that haunt you_.

“I am sorry.” Lifting his head out of his hands Richard looked up to the teen.

“Its not like it´s going to change anything, but I am really sorry.”

The older one shook his head.

“Well, it´s not our fault how screwed up our lives are, is it? I guess it is more of a question whether whatever is coming next is as screwed up as the…past? I don't know. Is it past to you? I mean, all my flashbacks?”

“I don't know how it could be put scientifically, but it is something between past and other reality at the same time. Like I was put into a past that is very much like the one I remember, but it will go very differently from there on…obviously.” Matt gestured between the two of them and Richard huffed his agreement. And if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him Matt could have sworn the corners of his mouth were pulled up on the sides, the ghost of a smile hovering there until his features smoothed out once more.

“As for the future? I still have my powers so I thing we didn't get lucky enough to get rid of the reasons for these powers.”

The journalist gave a sharp nod.

“Well, I would have been surprised if this was an other reality entirely. One of those where everything is all peachy and stuff. You know, no struggle for survival, a few deja-vu´s being the most extraordinary stuff ever going to happen…”

“Yeah, we couldn’t have that. After all that would mean no need for gatekeepers either. Would be a real loss for the world.”

“I can´t imagine what I would do without your lot to trouble-up my life.”

“…you just made that word up, didn't you?”

“Maybe I did. But that huge amount of trouble really does deserve an own neologism.”

It was obvious that Richard wanted to cheer up the mood by throwing around snarky comments and easy banter, but Matt would let him. He wasn't dealing with the clean-sheet Richard he was prepared for. But this could very well be for the better. Richard may be a little bitter but he had dealt with it. He was prepared. They could meet on equal ground like this.

 

“There isn't a chance that you just wanted to do some laundry here either, is there?” he asked, pointing his thumb towards the sports bag Matt had stuffed with his belongings. He grinned as wide as he could without hurting his facial muscles.

“Nope”

Richard just shrugged.

“Was worth the try. How about you get it out of the way where one of us is bound to trip over it on the way to the bathroom and then check whether I still keep the takeout catalogs in the same spot while I get rid of the stuff over here?”

The `stuff over here´ was all of his work papers plus what looked like bills, advertising and a whole lot of pretty random stuff. Nodding his agreement the gatekeeper got up and made his way over, displaying an easy confidence and prosaicness about walking around in this flat that helped to set Richard´s nerves at ease. He could just deceive himself into thinking that everything else would fall into place just as easily.

 

 

 

They agreed on pizza. Pizza was a pretty safe bet. They both could simply get theirs like they liked it, no debating involved- and every day was a good day for molten cheese, anyway. Both liked their pizza classic. No fancy vegetables or even fruit. Matt choose salami and pepperoni while Richard settled for ham. By the time the living room was filled with the delicious smell of their lunch it was almost time for supper. Or tea, if you came from a household that values things like that. Richard did, seeing how he couldn't live off coffee and energy drinks entirely. So he was sipping on a giant pot of tea as black as Chaos` soul.

Taking a gulp of the limo that he had stolen from the fridge, Matt watched the other bite off a log stripe of chess that stretched on and on instead of ripping off like it was supposed to.

“Your refrigerator is way better stocked than I remember. And much healthier, too.” Richard chewed and swallowed before answering. When he did he seemed a bit uncomfortable.

“Well, since I knew that I wasn't mad I decided that I could as well prepare myself a little for what may come.” That was putting it more than a little flippant, but neither commented on it.

“Preparing as in keeping your cholesterol-level within acceptable limits?”

“No, smartass. Like in working out. Running, mostly. I also got into much more spanish courses than… last time.” He looked sheepish about it, because of some incomprehensible reason that was purely Richard.

“Sounds like that will come in handy, especially when talking with Pedro.”

“That was the idea behind it. At least it will be more useful than the material-arts courses I was considering first.” Not being able to help himself Matt choked on his next bite thanks to that very comment. Only the mental picture of Richard going all karate kid on one of the old ones was enough to sent him into helpless giggles.

“Well, that _would_ have been helpful with some of their human puppets.”

“Oh shut up and eat you pizza, will you?”

 

 

One of the strongest arguments for takeout was the lack of dishes. When they finished they only had to dump the paper cartons in the recycling bin and wash their fingers.

“Do you think that the others will experience this like I did?” Matt asked over the quiet rush of the water that was running over his soapy fingers. Richard was in the kitchen part of the living room, cleaning off his mug and the breakfast plate he had ignored in the morning.

“The others of the five?”, he asked for clarity. Next door Matt hummed his agreement. “I don't know, maybe. Actually I think so. For you Oblivion ended in the same way. You went to the dreamworld.”

And since they had spent all day comparing and sharing their stories Richard found it much easier to speak of his flashbacks like they were a solid past. After all it was his past. Most likely. Only the part where his Matt was now the same one as the past one? That was still kind of hurting his brain. But he understood the others argumentation on how reading his book both times and then traveling times in order to help out had sort of closed his circle. It was still a foreign concept. Especially considering how Richard remembered the pain of killing his friend. And the way the `other´ Matt had defiantly been different and never indicated any of this. And there was still the fact that saying goodbye to the gatekeepers was the latest memory he had regained. He would have loved to know if that was the point when time had bent backwards for them. Or if it had been different for the both of them in this aspect, too.

The water had stopped running and Matt rounded the corner, his eyes being equally concerned, hesitant and hopeful. Shaking himself out of pointless musings Richard considered the topic at hand.

“It wold make sense for you to all react to this third live identically- you have the last time. The only thing I do not understand is why I remember, too- albeit in a different way.”

“Maybe because of how involved you have been? Based on the important role you played?” Richard suppressed a shudder. He hoped that he wouldn't have to play this `important´ role ever again, thank you very much.

“But if this is based on how I helped you then our other allies would have remembered, too. I bet the Nexus would have found a way to assemble the five in that case. And we can assume that whatever power, fate ect. had caused this playback was a friendly on- if the old ones would remember, too you would be in some cell by now.” He left unsaid all the things that would have happened to him and the others as well. They hung heavily in the air between them non the less. Clearing his throat Richard put the last plate back into its cupboard.

“It´s not really late but I do feel pretty beat. How about getting a good nights sleep now and talking about what we are going to do in the morning?”

Matt smiled.

“Sounds good. It has been a pretty eventful day. Emotionally.” And yes, he did know how sappy that sounded but he had stopped caring.

Getting their sleeping arrangements down was a little awkward and something non of them had thought about before. Richard didn't have a guest bedroom. He didn't have any rooms beside the bath and his own bedroom. Of course he tried to be the gentleman/ good host and offered Matt the bed. Yeah, as if. He was not only pretty sure that he would be very uncomfortable sleeping in there, even if they would change the sheets, but was also well aware on the sheer impracticability. Matt was tall for his age and not a stick in the landscape either, but Richard still had a few inches on him in both height and broadness of shoulders. A few inches was really making a difference on the small couch.

So Matt joked about Richard´s old back that would never recover from the night on hard cushions and didn't even pretend to take the bed into consideration. Richard didn't put up much of a fight. They both knew Matt was right. And also both not in the mood for discussing pointless things. There was a spare pillow and a duvet as cover for Matt, alongside a bed sheet that he simply threw over the sofa without stuffing it in anywhere. The gatekeeper couldn't help wondering if there was a reason for the second set of beddings?

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Excuse me?!”

Richards head snapped up from where he was bend over his laptop.

“It is weird, but I just realise how much stuff we never have talked about. I mean, when I think about it now I realise how I basically don't know anything about you. Only some facts about your youth, well, the other youth, and what you have told me today.”

Richard took a few seconds to consider before answering.

“We did swap stories, but they have all been about childhood more than the life we had right before it all started, didn't we?”

He got an affirmative nod for an answer.

“To answer your question: No, there is no girlfriend. I had one, but that is actually a few months ago by now.”

Then he grinned mischievously “How about you?”

“I am fourteen!”

Richard shrugged. “Youth today is a lot faster with those kind of things than we have been. And you are not really fourteen.”

“Yeah, yeah, old man. Following that logic you aren't in you twenties anymore either, you know. More like in you fifties…”

“Oh do shut up, will you?” Matt just smiled and gave him a look that transported `you started it´ very neatly.

 

“…There had been a girl, but it wasn't that serious”, he confessed after a short pause. Richard made a triumphant noise and Matt only refrained from using his powers to hit his friends face with the pillow due to the fact that it was his only one and he didn't put it past the other man to keep it as revenge. They each took their time in the bathroom, changed into their nightclothes and while matt tried to wriggle himself in a comfortable position that would allow all his limbs to stay on the limited space he had Richard came back to switch off the kitchen light.

Matt could hear his naked feet on the wood. Therefore he knew that he didn't return to his bedroom, but instead lingered in the door on his way out. The gatekeeper could also feel the tension that emerged from the other, a heavy presence pressing against his back. He didn't know wether he was supposed to know or if addressing Richard would help. Maybe he needed time to think something over a Matt would stop him from doing so by interrupting. He didn't know and that unnerved him a great deal. When the journalist finally spoke he forcibly had to stop himself from sighting in relief.

“I just…I wanted to tell you, that I wanted to come and see you. When your parents had that accident. I would have, because I am sure It would have been great for you to have a friend during that, someone else than your horrible relatives. But I couldn’t. I mean, we have no family ties an no other reason to even know each other. You were still a kid and I was barley off age, either. No way that it wouldn't have attracted all kinds of suspicions… But I really, really wanted to.”

Swallowing against the knot Matt suddenly felt in his throat he felt an other wave of gratitude. It would have been awkward if Richard had showed up, especially when Matt wouldn't have been able to remember him. But just the fact that he had considered it was worth something.

“Thank you, Richard”, he whispered into the dark room.

The other man nodded and then turned around to make his way into is own room.The sound of his door closing was the last thing Matt heard that night before almost instantly falling asleep.

 

 

 

 

_Pew, okay, an other chapter finished. I_ _think this is about the last one for this whole settling in part of the beginning of a story. The next should contain a little more movement ;)_

 

_I hope you are still enjoying it and will stick with me_

 

_Oh, and before I forget it: Be so kind as too point out mistakes to me, seeing as how that would help me a great deal and also make this a more enjoyable read for everyone else._


	5. My life in a nutshell

**My life in a nutshell**

 

**This is s written without a betas aid, mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy it non the less! Feel free to leave any kind of feedback :)**

 

 

Next morning it was the sound of a shower sputtering to life that called him out of his dreamless sleep. Matt opened his eyes while his face was still pressed into the pillow, trying to shield them from the bright light that was already flowing in through the thin curtains. There was no clock nearby, but then he didn't need a clock to tell that it was much, much too early. He could tell from the heaviness of his limbs.

Today was obviously a sunny day, with birds chirping and all the other stuff. The flat was even heating up from all the unexpected sunshine. Or maybe the suffocating heat stemmed from the fact that Matt was still wrapped up in two heavy blankets. Shrugging them down his shoulders he hugged the pillow closer and decided to wait at least till the bath was empty. No reason to get up before that, anyway.

Alone the sound of what he imagined to be warm water was enough to let his back muscles relax again. There hadn't been warm showers for him for a long, long time. The last was before he went to Hong-Kong. After this it was just a rushed splash, most times with cold water. A real shower? Pure heaven!

He didn't fall asleep again, but floated in the most comfortable state of in-between the two. The steady sounds he could hear in the background were loud enough to let him focus on it, letting him know that he was still awake, if not fully willing to let sleep go, yet. It was some minutes later that he recognised the silence that suddenly seemed to fill the room. Unable to tell wether the shower had just now stopped or if he had been even less conscious than he had thought Matt stained his ears to listen for a cue to what the other man was doing. Nothing much, obviously, as the bathroom door opened just then. Matt sat up fast enough to see the fog creep out after Richard, dancing between his feet before disappearing as fast as it had come.

“Morning”, he muttered.

“Well, don’t you look fresh this time of the day?” Rolling his eyes Matt let his hand run through thick black hair. His bed hair that Richard had always teased him with. It couldn't be that bad, not compared to the mess it had been in the days before the battle of Antarctica. Simply due to the fact of it being still on the good side of the usual period of time in-between two haircuts.

“Still not funny.” Now it was the others time to roll his eyes before he brought a small white towel to his head and rubbed his hair dry. Sadly it would not stick into every direction afterwards like you would expect from someone with curly hair like his.                                                                                                                “Anyway, you really are serious about the running business, aren't you?” pointing his thumb towards the sports shirt and pants over Richards arm to empathise his point.

“Didn't think you would need someone to show you around. And also figured, that you wouldn't be up to be showed around before ten either. I know you abuse every opportunity to sleep in.”

It was true. Had been true. Had been wrong. Matt of this life had loved to sleep in. In is former life he had always been up before dawn. _Always fighting, always watchful. Days blur into days, always moving, knowing what to do, knowing everything. Wandering around, even in his dreams_. Forcing his focus back into the current time Matt gave Richard a smile he knew to be a little tired. ( _He hadn't been tired very often. His powers and his aim hadn't given him much rest. And he was the leader of the five, he couldn't be tired, he had to watch out. He had to be the one who was prepared. So he stopped being tired.)_ It was more the exhaustion of stuffing all those memories into one mind. He hadn't been the same boy in both lives. He had been just as different and simultaneously the same as the others. But he also closed the circle, he knew. They were one now, maybe. He only had decided to let the Matt Richard knew have the upper hand for time being. He liked that one much better than the closed-off one who led armies to their victories and graves. Was this already multiple personalities disorder? Would that be bad?

Maybe Richard had sensed that something was up with him, because his expression turned a tad more gentle as he told Matt to get a shower, too. He even promised breakfast to be ready at his return.

 

While he stood under the deliciously hot spray Matt tried to not think of anything that would have to be done from now on. Instead he tried to picture what life could be like when they had won. It would be a sick joke to expect them to bring as many sacrifices as they had the last times. To pay with their lives, with their futures. Matt hoped, that if there was a reason for them to be forced into his once again, that it was to spare them a lost future as a price to all the pain the would pay for it with. He didn't voice any of that, of course.

Right now everything was still just fine. He was with someone he could trust, nobody was hunting him, yet. He was waiting for an ordinary breakfast while taking a good shower. Quiet shamelessly stealing Richards shampoo. It was the same brand as he remembered. Had Richard bought it because he remembered it, too? A shampoo was hardly worth a flashback, but Richard had also said, that he had regained memories without order to them. That they weren't all about important stuff like the fights but also about all the tiny seconds in-between and before. Only the time after wasn't there for him to see.

Matt hoped that there had been a time after. That Richard hadn't been ripped out of his reality and thrown back to his time of birth. Selfishly he also hoped, that he had, because this Richard being someone else who just held the memories of the one he used to know…that would seem wrong, as pretentious as it felt for the gatekeeper to even think it. After all he has never been quiet the same. And now wasn't either. It was maddeningly complicated to voice how it felt to himself, even in his own mind.

Maybe being a gatekeeper made him akin to light? A wave and a particle at the same time. And something in-between all along, until someone was able to prove either.

Maybe his old friend joined him in this world of physics and half truths.

Deciding he rather liked that thought Matt shook his head free of soap and then leaned back to simply enjoy.

 

“You know, right now this smells amazing, bit if you don't drag yourself out of the shower anytime soon it wont smell like much of anything besides coal!”, Richard called out a while later. His voice carried muffled through the door. He sounded like laughter and fondness. He sounded like he was completely serious. And because Matt had already satisfied his need for cleanliness and water for the day but his stomach reminded him how it hadn't had anything satisfying yet, he climbed out of the shower stall after only sighting once. He wore a baggy pair of sweatpants and a shirt he had borrowed. It made him look a little sleepy still, but that couldn't be helped and he didn't care anyway. Because the journalist had spoken the truth: breakfast did smell absolutely delicious.

It was egg with pepper, tomatoes and, most importantly, cheese. Swallowing hard Matt helped himself to a generous amount of it on his already buttered toast. Richard, of course, had left the edges on. He hated it when people cut them off. After seeing men, women and even children all but starve right on the middle of the street in both this time and ten thousand years before now he understood it completely.

Richard sat down opposite of him and only put his fork down when he had nearly finished with his portion. “So, You got any idea what to do now?” Matt didn't want to have this conversation now, over the most delicious thing he remembered eating since what felt like forever, but maybe it was best to get a head start. To not give himself a chance to get used to this. Relaxing breakfast with nice smalltalk. It was like playing house. He attempted to swallow a lump of toast that suddenly seemed to big to be forced his throat.

“Well, not a plan or anything like that.” After all it had only been twenty-four hours for him since he “work up”. And those hours had been spent truing to make sense of what was actually happening. By now he had a solid idea, so reasonably it would be best to plan the next step.                                                                                      “I think our best bet would be to assume that everything had happened just like it had the last time we spend in this age.” Richard gave a nod of agreement. He didn't comment on Matt leaving out the different ways they had come to this point in their lives.                                                                                                                     “That would now give us the huge advantage of knowing what is likely to happen from now on. Since the only differences had been the things we did. I didn't do much of anything the last day, and my starting point, so to speak, seems to be identical with the one I had lived through. Therefore the Nexus and the old ones should be on the same page as they had been.”

“They only figured your identities out in what should be a few months from now. But maybe they won’t, since you wont be arrested now.”

Matt nodded his agreement.

“Yes. And if we go with the theorie that the others will remember, too, they will do their best to say undetected.”

“That would give us time to get into contact with them without the old ones noticing.”

“I hope so.”

Richard sighted and run a hand through his hair. “But that also means that we wont be able to phone the Nexus. As you may remember we will have to assume they have a traitor among them.” Matt was a little angry with himself for not taking that into consideration, because of course, they were mostly the same people they had been, so Fabian would be the same as he had been- a traitor.

“Well, that leaves us to decide whether we should try to stay under their radar as well or if we should try to contact those we know to be on our side and trust in their secrecy.”

“I think we really should get into contact with them”, Richard mused. “We know to be careful around … and he doesn't know we know about him.”

“Yes, but as now we have a head start on the old ones. If we contact the Nexus we will give away how much we know as well as my identity as a gatekeeper. They also will be able to follow us the the others.”

Richard pressed his lips together. “I wouldn't like to view this as a simple pro and con list, Matt.”

“Well, why not? The Pros would be keeping our knowledge and identities a secret. The Nexus did help us understand what was going on, but of as now we know more about that than anybody else. We also don't need them to get the monks diary. We know where the gates are. In fact, if we don't have the diary they won´t know that we know and not guard the doors. We can used them if we are careful enough. The cons would be not having their financial backing and no access to their valuable contacts. But again, if we stay under the radar we wont need someone to smuggle us into a foreign country. We can simply travel there.”

“You put everything on the card that says they I am the only one beside you and the gatekeepers who know how this could go from here.”

Matt shrugged. It was the only logical conclusion since they wouldn't be able to sit here and talk if their enemy knew. If their supporters knew they would have been put into more secure care, too. Matt couldn't imagine the members of the Nexus to idly sit by and watch what was happening. They were all men and women of action. They would have done something.

“I know you feel like you won´t be able to gain much from them, and you are right. Its just…I would like us to have some kind of support system, in case of an emergency. I hate to imagine us running around completely on our own.” Richard seemed to be a litre embarrassed to admit this so the gatekeeper only hummed. The reporters intelligent blue eyes turned onto him while he stood up to runs his plate.

The teenager took a look at his by now cool breakfast but could neither work up the will to continue eating nor the willingness to throw it into the garbage bin. A few meters away Richard started to speak again, his voice a little raised to not be drowned out by the noise of running water.

“You think we should get into contact with the other gatekeepers first? You are their leader, but I thick they would appreciate to get a say in this matter.”

That would be stalling the decision and also give him a easy way out but Matt knew this wasn't really an option. He was the leader for exact that reason, to make the decisions for the five of them. Because he knew which one to make. getting up to join the other man at the counter he angled his body in a way that would make Richard look at him.

“You know we aren't going to do that. I know you don't like the idea of all the pressure and responsibility being with me, us as the gatekeepers, but thats the way it was decided to be. We are to save the world because it is what we were made for. We never failed and we wont fail now. If anything we were never as prepared as we are know. Our knowledge will be a huge advantage. It is our winning card and we will have to hide it in our sleeve as long as possible in order to not make the other players see it.”

“You know that hiding cards in your sleeves is cheating? Especially winning cards?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Richards mouth as he carefully put the plate away and leaned his hip against the counter. His arms crossed he tilted his head a little downwards to look into Matts determined eyes. The teen was really tall for his age.

“I think traveling back time to be the player who knows everybody's hand would already meet all qualifications of cheating. So fate isn't above that either.”

“Touché. But we will need the other gatekeepers. And I would go with the sooner the better.”

Matt nodded. It seemed like they were on the same page, again. “Yes. We should. I trust them to take care of themselves but we are far more strong if together and we will need to be just that for the final battle.”

“We know who and were they are, so I guess we should use that fact to correct the errors we made the last time.”

“Like what?”, Matt asked. He knew that he hadn't met Richard for nothing. he had always been a great help and between the two of them they had always been able to construct the most suitably strategy.

“For once we should think about whom to contact first. I know you didn't exactly exchange phone numbers or befriended each other on Facebook so we will have to make contact the old fashioned way.” Matt did a little eye-roll be let the other continue without commenting on the hub. Really, Richard wasn't that old… “Scott and Jamie are the most likely to be found out since they are the least discrete in terms of using their powers. Still I think we should give them time to sort everything out what had happened- after all the whole affair had been especially cruel to Scott. He will feel terrible over his actions, no matter how little control he really had over them due to being brain-washed. If anyone is able to help him with finding his balance it will be his twin. Having the others around them will only put more pressure on him and I am not sure if he would be able to take it.                                                                                                                                                                         Pedro is both `safe`and grounded where he is. No one took notice of him before you stumbled into each other. he also has absolutely no means to get away from poison town and we wont have to worry about no finding him or missing him because he is searching for us himself.”

“So you opt for Scarlet?” Matt wanted to clarify. So far everything Richard had said was probably as accurate as they could get. Matt knew that Scott had to be terrified. He also had to be ashamed of what he had done and frightened of what was to come. Putting him with Pedro hadn't turned out that helpful but the twins shared a very deep bound. He had the feeling that they would overcome the past and together thy would be able to face the other gatekeepers as well as the future- how ever different that would turn out for them. Pedro was literally without choice. He had no access to communication or transportation. The only way he could get out of Lima was by contacting the Inca. First: again, no means of making contact, second: even if he went with them Matt and Richard wold be able to locate them easily enough.

Richard meanwhile picked up where he had paused: “Scarlet is a smart girl. She will stay away from any mysterious door and lay as low as she can. The triads are watching over her and she is not in danger in her environment- not yet, anyway. But she is still be far the closest to us right now and she has had almost no time at all to adjust to being a gatekeeper before everything went really bad. I think she will be grateful to have someone around her whom she knows she can trust. especially since she will be very unsure around her father…”

Matt nodded. “You are right. We are much stronger if we are together and Scarlet will be the easiest one to contact as well, we even know where she lives! the only problem will be to get her to come with us without gaining to much attention. Unlike me she is very involved in a big circle of people who care about her well-being. Parents, friends, teacher…they will ask questions if she suddenly disappears. Most likely believe in an abduction. Or her running away if she takes her belonging with her. Both would likely attract the medias attention. Well-off pretty girls who disappear always attract media attention.”

“She will be just an other missing girl. I don't think the old ones will look into her if she isn't connected with such an unbelievable story as walking though a non-existing door.”

“It is a risk.” Richard didn't exactly like risks in general but he knew it wouldn't be the only on to come.“That would be an advantage of having the Nexus on our side. The have a considerably control of both the police as well as the media. They could keep it quiet. hell, maybe they could even give her a cover that would hinder any suspicions that may arise. fake a student exchange for example.” To that last part of the journalists talk Matt could only huff a laugh.

Yeah, that would be huge fun. Maybe they would fake him to be Scarlets exchange partner. Maybe he would live in Peru, together with his only ten years older guardian. They would have to fake a school, too. Or bribe one, whichever would be easier (Taking in his experiences so far made in Peru into account it would be the second one). He could very well picture the huge laugh the Adams´ would get out of this before forbidding their daughter to even think about exchanges ever again.

“They would come in handy, but then, again, we would gain more if we stay unbothered and out of the old ones reach.”

At this Richard smirked in a way that had Matt remember that he really wasn't a small town reporter at hearth.

“Who ever said anything about contacting the whole Nexus? We know whom we have to keep on the outside. We could warn the others off him, without him noticing anything is happening at all. Maybe we could even have the Nexus feed him wrong information on the research the put into finding the five of you.”

Okay, that now sounded much more sensible. Matt carefully tried to look at the idea from as many angles as possible, but he couldn't detect an obvious flaw with the logic of it. If they got into contact with Susan Ashwood the medium could in turn contact those they knew to be clean. They could tell only those who's help they would really need at the moment.

Of course, there was always the risk of trusting other people but nearly every member had proven how reliable and willing to help they were. It was a good, solid plan.

“Sounds good to me”, the gatekeeper carefully agreed. “It seems like we have a plan, huh?”

Richard returned his tentative smile a little faster, a little more hopeful and a whole lot brighter. It was a little shock that he was still able to smile that bright over the mere idea of what could be done. “So we get to contact Susan and Scarlet, in whichever order and then we will proceed to meet with perl, hoping that the twins will be able to reconnect and sort out their issues so we will be able to form a team that will kick Chaos ass as soon as we catch up with them as well?”

“Seems like thats the plan indeed.”

“Okay then!” Richard clapped his hands and took a step away from the counter he had still leaned against. “Better enjoy the time we still got and use it to make sure we have everything at hand we could need as well as settle that Mario-card match we never got to end before.” Laughing out loud Matt made sure to follow his friends fast strides towards the TV. Their lives may be about to get pretty complicated again, but at least he knew that he would always a a support as well as someone to cheer him up in Richard.

They would play the silly game and play normal for today. And tomorrow they would start on kicking Chaos ugly ass, as Richard had put it so eloquently.

 

 

**Okay, so this is once again a chapter filled to the brick with talking. I promise there will be more movement from now ;) I also fear that it is really difficult for me to express exactly how the whole time/parallel-world/ third-life-thing feels to Matt and Richards respectively. It is confusing as hell to write about. If you have questions I would love to answer those or listen to input/ corrections on the way I portrait it so far. Thank you for reading! I hope you stay with me :D**


	6. Taking a walk on the streets of fate

**Okay, sorry guys. Just reread the first book. And god, I messed up the living arrangements big time. I relocated almost everyone pretty shamelessly. Very sorry for that! I hope it didn't throw you off your track.**

 

 

**S** usan Ashwood wasn't exactly startled when a loud knock resonated through the house she lived in. It was little past eleven in the evening. Not obscenely late but not exactly visiting time anymore, either. Then again, she was still sitting in her living room, dressed in her day clothes and waiting for that buzzy feeling that often told her of things to come to subdue. She had been feeling this kind of anxiety for a few days now. It was an almost giddy feeling that she knew from her childhood and fairs, the thrill you felt from toes to stomach when your ride was about to tip down.                                                                                               

But beside this unhelpful poke on he conscious, the future refused to let her have a closer look, so to speak. Something was to coming, she needed to stay alert. Something was going to change the way of fate as she had been allowed to understand it.

And as the bell rung it seems like “something” was turing into a someone? She listened to Cindy- her housekeeper whom she had asked to spend the night just yesterday when she had been stuck by a… feeling of sorts, without really meaning to- hurry downstairs and open the door.

A smooth mans voice answered her question. The man must have been able to convince her of his good intentions, because the door opened wider and there was the shuffling sound of feet on the doormat before it was closed shut. An other voice mixed in with the other two, sounding much junger and with a familiarity to it that made Susan wonder whether she was being visited by an estranged family member. Cindy's lithe steps came up the stairs to the first floor on wich the sitting room was located.

She knocked on the door hinging and waited for her employer to acknowledge her with a turn of her head before speaking. “I am sorry, Miss Ashwood. There are two men downstairs who'd like to see you. I let them inside because this terrible rain is just starting again but I will ask them to leave if you don't feel like having visitors at this hour.”

The blind medium gave the younger woman a friendly smile. “Oh, I will be up all night anyway, I fear. Just lead them upstairs and then make us a nice cup of tea, won´t you?”

“Right away.” Although her boss couldn't see them, Cindy was always accompanying her words with small smiles, hoping they would show in the sound of her voice. Miss Ashwood had very good ears, after all.

 

 

**A** fter being invited in further, Richard thanked the housekeeper in the beautiful blue silk shirt with eyes to match and gestured for Matt to go ahead. They both knew that he was barely more than there for decoration, anyway. The teenager gave him a crooked smile and then straightened his shoulders in a motion that screamed “other Matt”. He paused shortly to knock on the door they were told to enter through and then proceeded to walk inside as if he owned it. There wasn't anything arrogant about it, just a sense of clarity and confidence that once again startled Richard and reminded him that he wasn't really talking about the fourteen year old boy he looked like to the rest of the world.

“Good evening, Miss Ashwood.” Matt greeted while moving around the sofas. Richard followed him. The woman was just like he remembered her. A little flash of warmth made his lips curl up into a soft smile. He knew he could trust her, that she has already proven her loyalty as well as her and the Nexus´usefulness- even if, in the end, they had been as powerless as every the other humans in the face of the old demons.

“It will be, I hope.” She sounded curious but not overly so. Richard knew her grandfather was a very well know and powerful medium. He had never been able to judge how powerful she was in comparison, what she could actually see and do.“So. You came into my house, I think you better start telling me what it is that you want.”

“We came here to speak to you as a trustworthy member of the Nexus who's help we need.” He had to give that to the boy, he didn't waste words on shipping around the difficult conversations. None of the obligatory talk about the weather and ever changing neighbourhood.

 

**S** usan meanwhile went completely stiff in her seat. Her head performed a sharp turn in the direction of the speakers voice while she had previously been sipping on a cup of tea that was now completely forgotten. To say she was surprised would have been an understatement. At first there was pure shock. She played the Nexus very close to her hearth and trusted the other members to do the same. They didn't tell anyone who didn't have to know or wouldn't follow their cause. And if they did they decided on it together. Someone coming to one of them directly, baring that kind of knowledge, even asking for help? That was unheard of.

But underneath the surprise- shock, really- the fear and confusion? She felt some kind of soothing calm. It felt like a piece that had stuck out of the flow of time like a nail out of an ill made fence now clicked back, aligning itself with the rest. It made the anxious feeling that had plunged her for days disappear. She felt reassured that everything was fine, was going to be fine, was happening just like it should.

She also got a moment of complete clarity that let her see what exactly happened. The people on the opposite side of the sitting group, one man and one boy. The one with the voice that resonated not only in this layer of their world, but also on a whole different one, one that most people could never get a glimpse of, the one that told Susan to dedicate her life to the Nexus work, to wait, that there was something to wait for, that she should have faith in their coming fight. And now it told her that this voice, coming out of a boys mouth was much older than the years he had lived. It told her of an age so great that time itself had remembered. It also told her a name.

“Matt.” Of course. Matt. Matt and Inti and Sappling and Flint and Scar. Five kids…people. Five. _The five._ They were here, walking earth again, and she could feel them. In far away places that stunk of human waste, admits an applauding audience, close by, life yet untainted by real pain. But most importantly there was this boy who was with her (accompanied by a man named…Richard, as it seemed) and his presence alone was enough to open up her mind to the hidden truth behind the thin vail of “reality” like it never had before.

As soon as she realised what was happening she forced her mind shut. Hastily cutting all the uncontrolled knowledge off that flooded her senses. She was still human, no matter her talents, and she had learned to respect her boundaries very well. Too much knowledge was a very dangerous thing to a humans mind.

“This is not how it originally was supposed to happen”, she stated, still not fully back in control of her own head, feeling whispers uttered by other voices, in different and foreign sounding languages even, fly around her conscious, a mist that clouded organised thinking.

“No. This is exactly how it is supposed to happen now”. What did he mean when he said now? “You know who I am. You trust in us, its what you were raised to do. You believe that we will be able to save this world. So trust me on this: This way is going to be the better one.” There was no doubt in his voice and for a moment Susan could see the truth in them. The finality.

“You are different than what we expected you to be.” The teen made a silent huff that sounded like amusement. The Legend had it that the heroes of old would be born again. Would grow up and into their powers. That they would save mankind once again. But it also defined the purpose of the Nexus. They were to protect and guide the children to make it possible for them to be as prepared for the coming battle as possible. To tell them of their destiny, their roles in history, even. Matt had been the leader of the five. In the past. And he had come to her as just that. Not some kid who didn't know what was happening to him, how to deal with that powers that should be starting to fully awakening in them by now. He wasn't looking for guidance. He wanted something and expected her, them, to provide. And maybe he also knew that she would recognise him as who he was without having to ask too many questions. That she would know to trust her intuition. How he would know that was beyond her. The stories that had survived time portrait the five as especially powerful beings. They tell about the miracles they made happen, in form of legends and fairytales. Religions. But it wasn't like there were lists of what each gatekeeper could do. It could be just an other one of their gifts.

“You said you want our help.” Susan took a big sip of her tea, trying to sooth her dry throat. Want our help, not need it. She thought. No matter how he had voiced it, the boy was simply choosing the easiest way here. He didn't need them. Not in the truest meaning of the word.

“Yes, I believe we do.” There was some shifting on his side and she would bet that he locked eyes with the man who accompanied him. To someone like her the silent communication that passed between them was as palpable in the too heavy air of the room as anything physical. “At first I would ask you to accept that we will not be able to be as open to the rest of the Nexus as I would like. I fear you have been found out and infiltrated.”

Infiltrated. The boy talked like a solider. It should sound wronger than it did. At least that were her first thoughts, before he revaluation what he had just told her sunk in. It stung. Thinking the would have…what? A mole? A spy? Head spinning and stomach turing she grabbed on to the fine china in her hands. If you fight for a common, and secret, cause it tends to knit you together. She hadn't seen some of the members for ages but when she had she had always felt grounded and secure in her believes. Together they spanned a net than provided support over the whole world. In theory. Because if Matt was telling the truth, which he was, because he was the leader of the five, if he wasn't completely on their side who would be?- how secure was that net really? Would it hold or unravel at the seams if tested? She was scared to even imagine that happening when one of the five would have relied on them.

“Who is it?”

“I don't know if I should tell you right now. I eventually will, but right now it might be better to know whom to trust instead.”

The blind woman couldn't say she agreed with that reasoning. Or the lack of any reasoning for that. “Then why did you tell me in the first place?”

“So you won´t be shocked when I tell you the name. So you will be able to act as fast as needed.” And people would expect it of her to be obscure, after all she let herself be called a medium. This wouldn't be easy. Luckily she hadn't expected it to be.

“Well. Then tell me, what is it that you need?”

 

 

**W** hile Susan was on the phone, arranging for them to have a place to stay at as well as all the other niceties like freshly printed passports, Matt and Richard met in the hallway. Tonight they would stay here. The housekeeper whom had invited them in was preparing their room right at this moment. Matt didn't know what there was to prepare but then again his aunt hadn't been a very hospitable person. Probably just checking if everything was as perfect as it had been after the last clean up. Restocking the soap, fluffing up the pillows. Something like that.

Rubbing at his temples Matt leaned against the sideboard. They had switched to business quick enough and Susan had shown herself willing to be put on hold for information and still offering her full resources, and those of the fellow members, to them. He he told her that they would need a place in London to stay at for the next days while they would meet up with Scarlet and decide how, and if, she would accompany them when they went to get Pedro and the twins. Susan had assured them she could arrange a hotel room for the very next morning, no matter the booking situation or late hour. When Matt had asked her for new passports she told them how David Tarrant, the Nexus´ very own Scotland Yard member who was also conveniently living in London, would be their best bet. When Matt agreed with her and told her to tell him about the conversation they had already had she seemed relived. Matt knew he would be able to order the passports without causing any suspicion, after all he had already done it once, when he and Richard had gone to Peru, other reality or not… What had cause protests, albeit not from Susan but from Richard, had been his request to alter the age his´ would display.

He had requested to be listed as eighteen. After all him being legal would make a lot of things easier. He wouldn't have to answer awkward question of why he wasn't with a guardian, Richard wouldn't have to answer awkward questions why he was traveling with a minor he was not related to. He could get a drivers license. Okay, the last one wasn't that important, but at least he wouldn't have to go to school or any of that. He could concentrated on finding the others and destroying chaos before he came to power. No fooling around this time. People had always told him he looked older, anyway.

Richard was of different impression. Before the gatekeeper had reached the fist “e” in `eighteen´ his “Hell no!” had put the room in complete silence. Of course Matt had tried to reason and told him the upsides of the arrangement but Richard had stayed cold. “They already treat you like an adult, expecting you to save their behinds and what not. I will not stand for you giving them the official green light to loose the last iota of respect for your youth.” Matt had wanted to laugh but he knew his friend was being serious and would not appreciate it.

“Richard, of all the people you never treated me like a kid. Not after you got to know me at least. And we both know perfectly well that the age that is stamped on that piece of paper will never encompass reality, either. I stopped being a kid very long ago.” He loathed the pained expression the other had portrayed, but it really would be easier this way. It was just a bit of ink on paper. Nothing special. He wouldn't be Matt Freeman anymore either, just as Richard wouldn't be Richard Cole. Not in name, at least. If this was it, the price for their freedom as the human race, he would gladly pay it. He paid with his life before, with the life of millions. There wasn’t anything more painful to give. He felt stupid for even thinking about it this hard. It shouldn't matter enough for that. Just a name and a date on a piece of paper. Letters and numbers. Burn the paper and they would disappear. He wouldn’t.

Letting his head fall back to the wall Richard forced down any irritation to look at his companion. Not many days ago the boy had felt like a memory, like a vision of a life not yet lived. Now he felt as solid and real as every single one of Richards own limbs. They were doing something big here, something unheard off and it was re-tying all the knots that had already existed between them in that other reality of theirs, just a little tighter, a little closer. He felt the insane need to protect that boy, to keep harm as far away as possible. Matt had saved his life and he had returned the favour numerous times. But maybe that wasn't the kind of saving he wanted. Distantly he wondered how he could keep his friend from shattering into millions of pieces once he wasn't part of the five, when the battle was won and everyone would expect him to switch back to being a teenager. It was a nice way of not letting himself think about his own future.

“You really don't like it, do you? The age thing I mean.” The way Matt rolled his head in his direction, slumped against the wall as well, looking as if it was the only thing holding him up by now, he looked worn out enough for Richard to hold back the sarcastic retreat.

“I can't say I do. But you are being practical while am being an overprotective asshat soooo…” The gatekeeper shook his head, but he did so with a tiny smile on his lips that betrayed his amusement. “You are the last one I want to look at me like I am some angsty kid.”

“You are a teenager, angsty is kind of in your job description.” Matt used his powers to tug on the former reporters shoes. They slid a little forward, leaving a startled Richard try to find his balance again.

“Not fair.” He made a show of scowling and repositioned himself- but the wall would never feel this comfortable again, he could tell. Just like when you have to leave your bed in the middle of the night and never find that sleeping position again.

Who are you trying to talk into boredom with your own rambling, Richard? Your own thoughts? Is it easier than fretting over why you are so desperate about labelling him a teen/ kid?

Just in that moment the housekeeper returned to inform the two guests that their rooms were ready now. The woman was a real life saver. If personal would save him from difficult conversation he didn't want to have with himself then maybe he should look into that idea. Right after the one were he got a job that would pay enough to keep him and Matt under a solid roof and well provided with food and movies.

“Perfect. If you would lead the way? I am absolutely ready to fall asleep right about now.”

 

**A** few minutes later Matt walked back into the room Richard was given. They each got their own, both connected via a shared bathroom. It was a luxury they hadn't had in a long time. They had preferred to share out of security reasons. Later on, especially after Hong Kong and during the disaster that was Oblivion, there simply hadn't been more room. Richard had already finished dressing for the night and was just sitting cross-legged on his bed, setting his laptop up with the wifi. The yellow sticker note with the code was lying on one of his knees the laptop on the other. He was wearing dark sweatpants and a faded Nirvana T-Shirt that was so 90s that Matt felt the insane urge to grow out his hair and listen to his cassette recorder. Or whatever people did back then…

“I thought you were beat for today?”

“I am, believe me. Just a little research. One has to keep up with the rest of the world, even while attempting to save it.” He could be telling the truth, but somehow Matt doubted it. There was this stain to his brows he always got when trying not to come out and say the first thing on his mind. Or the truth. Trust, however, was what kept the younger man from asking. If Richard didn't feel like telling him right now that was okay. He would if it was really important.

“Don't stay up to late, tomorrows a school day.”

“Yeah, you sleep well, too, mommy” And since when was Matt the mom in this relationship? Snorting he decided that was all the good night wishes the other would get. He waved one last time, then returned to his room.

 

**TBC**

**I hope you all stay** **interested, if it doesn't trouble you too much pause your ghost-reader-thing and share your thoughts with me! ;)**


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